Step by Step/Issue 44
This is Issue #44 of ''Step by Step''. This the second issue of Volume Eight. Hit It A few minutes later, Lyle Jackson restlessly walked about the kitchen with a strange feeling jumping in his soul, for it was fear and confusion. If he had the chance to say what color the pain was, he would say deep blue. The man stopped in the living room, dazed at first as if he had stopped unconsciously, and then looked around. While the sorrowful father of a little girl prayed behind him, his wounded friend was subdued with a mystery that only took away the pain. “What do you think of this?” he asked, looking specifically at the television. “You said this house ain’t a house,” the father said. “You tell me, Lyle.” “It strikes me as odd,” Lyle said, “that this home doesn’t have what it should have for a man to be happy, be pleased. There is no kitchen, there’s only some couches for a tired hunter to take a break. A television in front of him. An attic to store supplies—and a garage to store a monster?” “It’s very weird,” Dennis said. “If this Mr. Beekman is the owner, he’s strange. Maybe in trouble. A troublemaker, yeah.” “Did you open the man’s mail?” “I did, and there was a letter inside.” “And it's still there?” “You should ask me what the letter said,” Dennis responded, “because I read it. You’re madly curious for a man that was about to die an hour ago.” That knocked Lyle Jackson right off his train of thought. Under the wrath of confusion, he calmly collected himself. “And what was the letter about?” "It's an old letter. It's covered in dust, or something powder. After reading it myself, it looked like a threat to me." “A threat—?” “You stay here,” Dennis said. “I’m gonna bring it to you.” A while of long patience started, and when Dennis left and left Lyle by his lonesome, it was then that Lyle realized how glad he was to be with someone who he trusted and could call a friend. He planted himself on one of the couches. Since Dennis had left the door open, he saw fireflies buzzing outside; the night had become lively. As a minute dawned near, Dennis the messengers returned holding a piece of yellow paper that was white in some places. “Do you want to read it?” “Keep it,” Lyle said, a sense of danger anxiously burning between him and the letter. “Read it to me.” “You have to see it,” Dennis said in a demanding tone that even surprised him. He hesitated to act for a second, glanced over the letter, and then held in front of Lyle. “I think the Devil wrote this,” he said. The letter was old-looking and a film of dust was growing on it in the remains of a thick spiderweb. Despite that, against the dark background of the cursed night, the bold red words on the paper exploded through the darkness like the white teeth slashing out of a black panther’s mouth. YOU ARE BEING WATCHED BY THE BRINGER OF DAWN Donovan Smith, a once great man of our cause, is hereby warned that HE is now an official traitor of the cause. HE is hereby informed that HE has crossed a line that one, under their allegiance to the cause, does not dare walk over. He who crosses such a line is a fool for committing such an act and a liar against the cause for having disgraced what it means to be a part of the cause. '' The letter had no face, only teeth. A chill ran down Lyle's dark back and his chest, under the black shirt that he had on, began to slowly beat faster. The Devil had seen this same paper. This piece of old, seemingly ancient paper spoke of a threat. The paper had a sudden glow of danger, and Lyle realized that he had just finished reading the evil warning against one of this town's enforcers of the law. Could it be true, true as the word of God, which seemed to sealing fates tonight? No, for it was evil, truly evil as the blackness that accompanies the thought of the devil. A rush of fear climbed up Lyle's chest and was only quelled with a pale exhale of stressed breath. They decided to leave the envelope on the top of the television. Afterwards, they left the house and entered the darkness outside the house. "What do you think it means?" Dennis said. "What do I think?" Lyle Jackson said, so tired and in pain. "I think that not much surprises me now. Is it because I'm dying? Dying of thirst, of hunger, of blood loss? Am I so off the deep-end that I'm not scared?" "I'm hungry too," Dennis said, "and I'm scared still." "Don't be." Lyle Jackson looked at what was resting in the distance and sighed, very heavily. "We're heading back to town, Dennis. Are you ready? "Of course. How about you?" "Most definitely." And, then the before smothered breath of the devil escaped into the air of the night. ---- ''And He said to him. In the harsh night blacker than sin, Dennis walked holding Lyle Jackson up and with a kerosene lamp in one of his hands, shaking with fear.'' '' The woods, the hallowed ones which separate the town from the world beyond, are alive. At night when the nearby town is dead asleep, it is violently alive. Lyle Jackson, feigning strength yet full of pain, is in fear for not only his life, but for Dennis's too. Unseen and unrecognizable animals and beasts move around them behind the trees—eradic and fast, for the terror in him was real. Darkness had fallen over the entire land, and at four something in the morning, it had only just begun to let up. Lyle Jackson raised his head upward and saw the slightest shade of white sky above them. They were dead in the middle of the woods. "I can hardly see a thing," Dennis said. "You don't want to. It's an ugly world right now." "Why the letter?" Dennis said. "A bringer of dawn?" "Listen, don't think about that." "Was it a joke, you think?" "No idea." "Did the mayor do all of this?" "No idea," Lyle answered him, "a man like Rockefeller can't do something like that—kill a man, you know. I mean, threaten him, a police officer. Rockefeller—I trusted him. He put his confidence in me and Nolan, and we did those jobs for him. He wants us dead." "We're a threat." "A threat to whatever damn thing he's cooking." "Jesus, maybe he wrote the threat." "Could be true." "What jobs, what jobs were you talking about?" "I remember the first one as if it was yesterday," Lyle said, his voice seemingly becoming drowsy. "Don't you know who Tom Gallenger is? Or was?" "No idea." "Back in the day, Tom Gallenger lived around these parts," Lyle began. "He worked, went to bars, and slept in his apartment home. There were what—three other Toms in Smith's Ferry?—and they were hooligans, Rockefeller told me and Nolan. Yeah, Nolan and I. People, these Toms, were menaces to society, Rockefeller said. They had to be taken care of, he said. Guess what happened, Dennis? Guess." "Is that how you know him, Rockefeller?" "Things got a little too hot," Lyle said, drowsier. "You know how it is. Rockefeller gave us the money and the pistols, and gave us Tom's address. Gave us the other three as well. Told me and Nolan that they were sonsofbitches looking to scare his people. Tom had threatened to burn down a church, a church. Other people's houses. Nolan said that shits like Tom are worth cash, money, you know? So we took them out. We killed them all, Tom and the three other guys. Buried all the evidence. Rockefeller made us get rid of any evidence that could have, or would have, proved that they were trouble. Or I should say, evidence that would have proved whether or not they were trouble to begin with. Reasonable doubt, y'know. I think—I think, we got played." "That's why you want to get yourself killed," Dennis scoffed. "A guilty killer, that's you. You want to die!" "—I think, Tom was innocent," Lyle continued, grinning now. "The others too. And now with these murders, it's ironic. I might be exhausted, dying and starving, but we got played. It's funny, right?" "What's funny? Why are you laughing?" "We saw the dollar signs and Rockefeller saw two puppets," Lyle said. "Who knows, who really knows who Tom Gallenger really was? Why on earth was he a threat to Rockefeller?" "Carter? How about Carter?" "Same goes for Carter." Lyle Jackson felt reborn, renewed. "Yeah, things are starting to make sense now. That's what's got me laughing. It took a bullet in the side for me to sober up, wow." "We're being hunted. Alive, we're being hunted, alive? "Could be. Maybe the dead are walking too." Some twigs broke in the distance. It was such a quiet, peacefully strong night. More twigs broke in the distance. Too dark—the night was still too dark, alive as a dying man is livelier when on the brink of death. Being in the woods, one with the darkness of the old night, robbed you of your eyes and pried open your ears. Lyle looked around, as did Dennis. The night was still dark, of a black that was thicker than the inside of a coffin, six feet under earth. "Who the hell goes there?" A man barked through the crispness of the air. More twigs broke. "It was just me," another man said. Just then, a patch of land about twenty feet ahead of Lyle and Dennis broke into light. There was a car—Lyle saw it, and instantly realized that it was one of the little trucks with the black and bloody red-stained flag in the back. The headlights were shining on another one of the little trucks. The sky above them was now free of black, for it was a sheet of starry grayness. "Didn't I tell you to keep clear of the thick trees?" "You did." The owner of this voice moved into the light of the headlights. "I don't want to shoot you on accident, friend o' mine," the other man said. "Tonight's been very heated," he said and walked into the light. The man was tall, wearing a brown coat that seemed to completely cover his back, emphasizing the baton which dangled from this belt and the rifle in his arms, for he was Drake Wilson. "I get so tired watching. I wanted to do something new." "We thought Carter was something new." Officer Wilson rubbed the side of his face. His heart was beating, beating so hard into his throat. After long nights like these, one would've gone to rest. But Officer Wilson sought this adrenaline out, not for him, but for what the cause stood for. He was a noble and humble follower, one who had studied the cause before having pledged to the cause. "And you remember what happened to Carter Jameson, right? Right, deputy?" "I believe so," said Deputy Blaine. "He's dead now in the bed of a truck. Hardly knew the man, but did you see him? His face was all red and infected, his cheeks were gone so you could have seen his infected teeth. And that hand, you saw his hand—how, how was the hand even still apart of his arm?" "Frankly, I'm none too sure he was all alive when he came into town." "Was he one of those things, you think?" "More or less," the Officer said. "And he sure didn't smell too good, goddam!" "Honk, honk!" Officer Beekman shouted from behind the wheel of a truck. "Let's roll, I say," the condemned man shouted. "I'm ready." Officer Wilson looked towards the sky, looking for some sign. "Are you ready yet, deputy?" "I was born ready." "Born ready for what?" Offier Wilson asked, looking back down at the thirty-one year old with enough smarts to survive in the countryside. "The cause. This cause." "Whose cause?" "Our cause." Deputy Blaine looked at the sky. "Our cause—our great cause, yeah!" "The same one you pledged to with your hand over your heart." "It's the same cause that I'm willing to lay down my life for," Blaine said, breathing heavily. "I don't have to tell you how great what you just said is," Officer Wilson said. Roughly twenty feet away, close in the distance, Lyle and Dennis had been watching from between the trees. It was such a horror, such a scare that Dennis had crossed himself and Lyle had gone quiet, for these same men, children and fools, were all over the place. And they controlled the town. And with all the lands crawling with the resurrected dead, nobody could stop them. Rebellion, Lyle Jackson thought. Maybe worse. Officer Wilson walked, strutting as his coat covered his tracks, over to his truck. He got in the passenger seat, threw his rifle over his back, and grabbed the head of the truck with his hand, swaying outside. "Hey, Blaine!" "What's the matter?" The young man Blaine said, still transfixed at the sky. "Remember who you're looking for." "Two gangsters—maybe more." "And the bringer of dawn," Officer Wilson said. "He's in these woods, looking as we're looking for the same troublemakers. Keep him with you, wherever you go, and you'll be as powerful as him." "I know," Blaine responded, breaking his stare at the sky. "I know, I know, sir!" "He's on his way." "Yup." "Sometimes, the things you see in the shadows are more than just shadows." And with that, Wilson sat inside the truck and the truck roared to life. From twenty feet away, Lyle already saw an opening, dark as it was. He prayed for the energy to do it, but was too weak to move without Dennis. When Dennis finished crossing himself goodly, he looked and saw as the truck sped away down a path that was invisible to him through the dark. "There's only one man now," Lyle said. "You aren't thinking about—" "One man." "You're awfully bad and I'm tired." "One truck, too." Lyle said. "Maybe the key's in the ignition, y'never know." "He's coming this way, oh God." "Thank God." "Don't kill him, please." "I think he heard you." "No, he didn't—!" "Who the hell goes there?" Blaine said, and his figure appeared barely ten feet from them. He had his gun, a fat revolver, raised up. "It's you two, oh damn!" "You don't want us," Dennis said, and it became clear to him that both he and Lyle were facing the gunman. "I don't want y'all. I need to put bullets into y'all, that's all!" And before any one of the two could utter another word, Lyle Jackson threw himself off Dennis and lunged forward at Blaine, tossing a few punches through the air before crashing into the grass-smothered dirt ground, landing on his side. He let out a painful animalistic howl that could have scared off a nearby wolf. They're everywhere, Lyle thought. He looked up at Blaine and snarled. Those things, he thought, that killed Wyatt. Blaine shot a look at Dennis and pointed the gun at him. Dennis screamed. Then Lyle Jackson began to laugh. "You stay back too," Blaine said, looking at Lyle. He tightened his grip on the fat revolver of his, pushing it towards Lyle, a wounded beast of the dark, the same that people would talk about around a campfire."You're scaring the hell outta me, so stay there. Make this easy, please, make it easy." Lyle struggled on the ground, breathing rapidly and hoarsely. The blood had left his head, making him woozy, making him vulnerable. He snarled again. "I ain't vulnerable," he said, growling thickly. He got up, picked himself up, and walked, hauling and dragging himself at first, towards Blaine, the child of the bringer of dawn. "Who do you think you are?" Lyle asked him, his voice less hoarse now. "I'll shoot you where you stand, man." "Lyle," Dennis spoke. "Dennis," Lyle said, straightening his back up like that of a soldier's, a stretch of a dozen feet from Dennis and a mere few feet from Blaine. "Who does he—who in the hell does he think he is to point a gun at me?" "You're dead where you are," Deputy Blaine said. "You're a dead terrorist walking, and I don't feel like looking at you for one more goddam second." Lyle took a brash step forward, limping. Blaine looked at him, his eyes crazy with fear and intimidation, and took two steps forward, raised the revolver again, and cocked it back. The two were now within spitting distance, and Lyle got a good glimpse of what Blaine looked like, and he was a sweaty faced man with the remnants of a buzzcut. Lyle took one last step forward, closing any divide between the two. He snarled again and Blaine, putting the revolver's barrel on Lyle's forehead, looked him over. "Shoot me," Lyle pleaded, weakly. "Get it over with, come on." "What?" The deputy said. "Are you gonna do it?" Lyle said. "Or do I have to do it, boy?" "Boy, wait, what?" Lyle pressed his forehead into the gun's barrel. He went loose, letting his shoulder slack and throwing his arms down. He looked, even in the moonlight, aggressively exhausted. "I can't hide anymore, you know. It's my time." "I understand," Blaine said, and actually with some fear now. "Running like that before an execution just makes you die tired." "And what if my blood's hot?" Lyle asked, looking down at the ground. "Huh?" "I ain't cold-blooded," Lyle said, pridefully, and rolled his eyes upwards, eyeballing Blaine. "And ain't I just one dumb nigger to let you blow my brains out!" "What!" Lyle, cackling now like a witch after her nap, pulled back his head and swung it forward, crashing his into Blaine's—his head instantly burst into a fireball of pain and he fell backwards, as did Blaine, who barely registered everything as he let the revolver drop to the grass. "Dead!" Lyle continued to laugh, curling into a ball on the grass. "He thought I was a dead man walking, yeah, that's what he thought." "My God," Dennis said, in unspeakable horror as he ran towards both of them. "It's my gun and truck now," Lyle said, looking at the unconscious Blaine and pointing at the shiny fat revolver that he had let fall into the grass. His laughter was too alive and real—he kept laughing, and laughing, and that fought off all the pain that he had, for his body was in distress, so damaged and under stress that he couldn't have been more awake. He was just laughing to himself—his soul was totally alive. "I ain't healthy, you know, Dennis, but that was all me." "He was about to shoot you." "So?" "What if he'd shot you after you lunged at him?" "What if he had shot you after I lunged at him?" Lyle said, trying to get on his legs. "I'd be dead," Dennis said, going to help him up. "And my answer is," Lyle said. "I'd be dead." "You're a class act, you know that?" "And you're a piece of art," Lyle said while Dennis pulled him up to his shoulders. "Did you see that? Did you notice how I didn't kill him?" "I did, but why?" "Now, we're gonna take that gun of his and that truck of his," Lyle said, flatly. "And then we'll ride, maybe find the others, and leave. We'll ride for the hills, yeah. "Why didn't you, why didn't you kill him, Lyle?" "I lost that bloodlust earlier tonight," Lyle bit his lip. "when I got shot, trying to stab the hell out of that damn man with that horrible knife—I'm done, Dennis, I'm done." "That's fine, Lyle." "You look all right your dang self, Dennis. And I got my sealegs back, I feel a lot better now, so let's go." Above them, above those hallowed woods, was the dying night sky. Soon, dawn would break over the land and sky, replacing the ghostly pale sky with warm, red clouds that came with every dawn that reminded Lyle much of hot wine. Drink up, Carter's voice echoed through the woods. The same woods that bled into the Beekman funeral home and its graveyard, where Nolan and Lyle had visited several too many times. Very soon, the bringer of dawn would appear. Leaving Blaine and all that bloodshed which could have been true behind, true as Malik's death at the hands of Lyle who had shown no mercy, the two men, men who were locked in frozen fate, rode the truck along the dirt path towards town, towards a civilization with no shame for what it had hidden well. Lyle Jackson sat restlessly in the seat beside Dennis, who was manning the truck. Often, Lyle would spasm and kick about, one of the worst symptoms that came with quitting the smokes cold turkey. "The town's own mayor—I still can't believe all this." Dennis said, sweating and panting out of stress and from being cold, for the night had made a dark, arctic wasteland out of the countryside. He was glad for this peace, this one instance where the threat was not visible and was far away. "We'll do the right thing this time, Dennis." "We will." "Can't say what the future holds for either one of us, though." "At the school, they beat you up, yeah. You didn't deserve that." Dennis pulled up to an intersection with a sign standing near them, as if it was a scarecrow warning them, telling them to beware, for Smiths Ferry was merely just ahead of them. "Ten minutes or so, that's all it took." "No sign of the boys, Nolan and Woods." "We'll find them real soon." "There ain't but a soul in this town—it's dead, deader than a ghost town. Deader than a cemetery." "Easier for us, I think." "I'm thinking," Lyle began. "I'm starting to believe that I really killed that man, that Brock Menster, the sergeant himself." "Maybe we can somebody here ask for directions," Dennis chuckled, grinning slightly as he rode into the town. "You know, if we can even find somebody." "Did you hear me?" "Yeah, but don't worry. Forget about that, for now. We got lives to save." "God won't forget what I've done." "And He hasn't forgotten about us, some criminals looking for what mercy he can spare." "Frankly, why am I still alive?" Lyle said, looking out the window. He saw, through the moonlight, a valley of lively yellow grass, yet no tombstones. "I shouldn't be alive; I got injuries on me that would kill any other man." "But not a soldier." "I ain't a soldier, I'm a killer. That's what I've learned, thus far." "When the two Towers fell, I was in my apartment, hell, it was abandoned. I was alone, looking at myself, asking why, why me, why had I just stabbed myself in the arm with a damned syringe full of heroin, the candy, for the third time in a week. That same week, after the eleventh, I asked myself why over and over again. And you, you wanted to become a boy in green, that's a sign of strength, inner strength." "What are you on about, Dennis?" "You're somebody, Lyle. Under all that pain of yours, you are somebody." Dennis held his hand out to Lyle. Lyle took it and shook it good. "We got folk to save." "Folk just as bad as us, but worth saving." "Let's do it." "All right, man," Dennis placed his foot on the gas pedal, looking forward as the headlights illuminated the silhouettes of stone buildings and he saw the twinkle of many lampposts, rich as the light of salvation. "All right, brother." "Brother?" "You know it." "Let's roll then—hit it!" As if locking his fate, Dennis crushed his foot upon the gas pedal. The truck roared, growling like a beast, hungrily roaring to life. Without warning, the truck raced forward towards the town like a shooting star, sparks and all. "Hit it," Lyle cackled louder, jumping out of his seat while wrenching Blaine's revolver out from his hip. "Hit it, we're coming you sonsofbitches!" ---- =Issues= Category:Step by Step Category:Category:Step by Step Issues Category:Issues